Chapter 35 – Mortal Realm Stage 10
Standing in the middle of the stage, Ye Chen looked like a drawn sharp sword radiating with power.
“This guy’s strength is horrifying. If beating Huang Bingwen proved his strength, then beating that genius Zhang Haoran proves he is an unimaginable genius.”
“Right, it is not too uncommon to see a genius challenging those who have a higher cultivation than themselves. What shocked me is that the one that Ye Chen beat was also a genius, it's like watching someone our age challenge the top ranked disciple.”
“That’s impossible. Among our generation in Windy Nation, no one could challenge our top disciple.”
“It was only a metaphor!”
With one knee on the floor, Zhang Haoran put his left hand on his broken right arm. He looked up as his lips, that were were soaked with blood, cascade blood down his chin. He said with a murderous tone: “No one could beat me, Zhang Haoran. Not even you. Ye Chen, just you wait. When you become an inner disciple in five months, I will come challenge you again.”
The crowd all shook their heads as they all thought: Ye Chen who was only at Mortal Realm Stage 9 has already beaten you, would you even have a chance when he becomes an inner disciple?
Ye Chen was actually quite impressed by Zhang Haoran. Although he was arrogant and disrespectful to the point that he thought superior to everyone else, he did have a passion for martial art. He never knew when to give up. In the contrary, Huang Bingwen decided to hide in the crowd once he failed. He probably is planning some evil plan at this moment. His personality would never accomplish anything.
“Okay, I will give you a chance to redeem yourself when I become an inner disciple within five months.” To warriors with such passion, Ye Chen took every word they said seriously.
Staggering to stand up, Zhang Haoran gave Ye Chen a deep look. “You are strong. I, Zhang Haoran, have lost fair and square. However, if you want me to just give up...sorry, it’s impossible.”
After speaking those words, he walked down the stage staunchly.
“Wow! A man with such honor, nice!” Around the stage was the viewer seats, it was about two meters high filled with different levels of seats. At the top of the viewer area, there was a teenage boy in green, he was waving a fan in his hand, looking very relaxed.
On his side stood a teenager with iron sword, he said casually: “Becoming a Condensing Reality warrior at the age of thirteen should make him one of the top five warriors of Sky Cloud Martial School in the past decade.”
The teenager in green nodded, “When he matures a bit, he will qualify to be our opponent. As for the other one, I am very curious about how he gained such strength. Even core disciple Xu Jing cannot compete with him in strength.”
“He is of no concern. After he reaches Condensing Reality Stage, his power will not be useful anymore. Although his defense martial art is quite unique, I have never seen anything like it before.”
“Everyone has their own secrets, didn’t you just get a sword art in that Ghost Cry Forest?” the teenager in green laughed, then said: “Let’s go! We are wasting time.”
The other teenager nodded. The two left the Martial Plaza.
If someone saw these two, they would definitely recognize them. The teenager holding a sword was one of the top ten inner disciples in the Sky Cloud Martial School, he was called Li Kuang. His sword art could even frighten ghosts and was nicknamed the Ghost Sword among the northern part of the Windy Nation; the teenager in green was called Fei Shaoqing had an even higher rank than Li Kuang. Although he was young and calm, he was extremely brutal in fights, his opponents usually ended up either badly wounded or dead.
The two had just came back from a mission for the Sky Cloud Martial School. Upon seeing the crowd at the martial plaza, they came to check it out.
On the way back home, Wu Zongming looked at Ye Chen curiously, “Ye Chen, your improvement is through the roof! Now, you are way ahead of me.”
Ye Chen could not explain everything that had happened to him, he said: “Really? I did not think so.”
“You were only Mortal Realm Stage 6 during the Mu Ren Gang and now you are already at Mortal Realm Stage 9. And your strength is incomparable to most warriors of the same stage. When you reach the Condensing Reality, I wonder what kind of monster you would become.”
“Hm, I probably just had an enlightenment.”
Heard his comment, Wu Zongming nodded surprisingly, “It is not unreasonable for such a thing to happen. Some people happen to be extremely ordinary in the beginning, then suddenly arise to fame and greatness. And you, my friend, might be one of them.”
Ye Chen did not how to reply.
…
Time passed. Ye Chen was not gloating as people expected. Instead, he was usually found either locked himself in his room or at training at the edge of the mountain.
During this period, Zhang Haoran and Wu Zongming had officially became inner disciples.
Each inner disciples had their own identity mark secured to their waist. Their names were inscribed onto the back of the mark , and could access the Pavilion of Martial Arts freely with their identity mark, read top rank martial arts, and take on school missions to venture outside school grounds where they could make their own path and reputation.
Of course, going on an adventure outside the school was very dangerous. In the past decade, numerous inner disciples had died. Some of them were killed in assassin ambushes; some of them were killed by different bandit gangs, some of them were killed by other martial institutions, while some of them just completely disappeared.
However, the leaders of the Sky Cloud Martial Art did not come try to decrease the death rate of their inner disciples. Because, no matter how pretty a flower in the greenhouse is, without surviving the wind and the rain, they could never amount to anything. They could only grow stronger when they were allowed to leave their “greenhouse”, so that they could build a stable base for their future.
However, Zhang Haoran and Wu Zongming did not need to do missions yet. Within the first half year after becoming inner disciples, the leaders allowed they to focus on training and boosting their power level. After half year, they could go outside to train their mind and potential.
While everyone else was working hard, Ye Chen was working even harder.
Everyday besides training the third spell of his Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell, he would train with soul stones.
After absorbing all the lingqi from the inborn blue jade, he did not need more Jade Qi. All he needed to do was to master his body art, connecting between every inch of his blood and flesh; once the connection was built, his defense would be flawless and unbeatable.
Ye Chen had to admit, the meat of those strange fish had helped him a lot, otherwise he would not be able to master the Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell to the level where even an Early Condensing Reality warrior could not injure him.
Now that he had finished his supply of fish meat, Ye Chen’s power had stopped at twelve thousand pounds. From now on, every ten pounds would be ten times harder than the last, he almost reached his body’s limit. If he wanted to continue increase his power, he had to make some kind of breakthrough.
...
At night. A bright moon had come up high in the sky.
The moonlight was clear like a crystal, going through the windows and brightening the room. Outside the windows, the shadow of the trees blanketed large swaths of area, creating a beautiful aura.
Ye Chen sat on his bed, with one soul stone in each of his hands.
Before, Ye Chen was afraid to use two soul stones at a time. Although this method could increase his training speed two times faster, the powerful Yuan Qi from the soul stones could destroy his meridians and cripple his martial arts cultivation. However, his body had been strengthened. With his Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell, using a soul stone was nothing to him, in fact, using two at the same time would be just the perfect amount of energy his body could handle.
With the huge amount of Yuan Qi from the soul stones nourishing his Qi, the Qi tornado inside Ye Chen’s Dantian kept expanding, eventually it filling up his Dantian completely. Fortunately, with the protection from Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell and the fish meat, his Dantian had became stronger; otherwise, there might be a huge problem.
Boom!
The Qi tornado suddenly compressed thirty percent of its original size.
Ye Chen opened his eyes, slowly he breathed out an impure breath, “I finally reached the peak of Mortal Realm Stage 10. Reaching the Condensing Reality Stage was harder than I expected.”
To reach the Condensing Reality Stage, the warrior had to liquidize his Qi into zhen qi which was an extremely hard process. After that, it would only get harder and harder, it might cause rebound for failing to breakthrough. Comparing to others, Ye Chen already had it easy. Because his Pure Yuan Art was famous for its purity, he could control it without restrain.
However, when he was about to officially try to reach the next level, he had to stop converting Yuan Qi from soul stones. Because no matter how pure his Yuan Qi got, it required time to combine with the Qi inside his body, making it quite difficult to reach the Condensing Reality Stage.
Standing up and walking to the windows, Ye Chen looked at the view outside the windows, he mumbled to himself: “The Ye family meeting is in two weeks time, it is time to go home.”